On spanking children

For anybody who’s raised a child:

Most of America’s populace think it improper to spank children. The other day I was talking to one of my younger buddies about methods used to discipline children.
We talked about ‘time outs,’ grounding, holding back ‘rewards’ until the child displayed desired behavior etc. One of the things we discussed was the act of spanking and my friend explained that no, he does not spank any of his children.

He explained that what he does is to take the misbehaving child out for a ride in the car and talk. He said that usually this works and that the child calms down fairly quickly and really doesn’t take too much time.

By removing the child, in this case his son, from the immediate situation and providing a change of scenery, the child is allowed to focus on something different. Once the child has the opportunity to change perspective, things get better quickly and the child has better understanding of his place within the family and begins to understand the families concept of acceptable behavior.

He kindly shared a picture of the process which I share with you now.

Calming Albert

Calming Albert

In the supermarket was a man pushing a cart which contained a screaming, bellowing baby. The gentleman kept repeating softly, “Don’t get excited, Albert; don’t scream, Albert; don’t yell, Albert; keep calm, Albert.”

A woman standing next to him said, “You certainly are to be commended for trying to soothe your son, Albert.”

The man looked at her and said, “Lady, I’m Albert!”

Ulysses

Ulysses omits orienting background information about its characters but exposes their private thoughts seemingly unedited. Its parts don’t relate to one another in any familiar way, and Joyce’s techniques change repeatedly. Issues raised early on remain unresolved at the end.

Ulysses contains detailed references to The Odyssey, Hamlet, Don Giovanni, Plato, Aristotle and Catholic theology; untranslated passages of Latin, Italian and Hebrew; boldface capitalized headlines that make a section set in a newspaper office resemble a newspaper; seemingly endless, farcical lists (“Patrick W. Shakespeare” and “Brian Confucius” as “Irish heroes and heroines of antiquity”) and wild swings between poetic writing and raucous adolescent humour, even fart jokes.Still on page (444).

Pentagon: Satellite Debris Not a Danger

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military’s analysis of the missile strike on a dead U.S. spy satellite has revealed no sign of danger from debris, including no hazard from the satellite’s fuel tank, a Pentagon spokesman said Friday.

“As we continue to do the post-strike analysis, (it) continues to give us confidence that the hydrazine tank was ruptured. However, the analysis is still ongoing,” spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

U.S. officials have said the main reason they shot down the satellite was because of the potential health hazard to humans in the event the satellite’s fuel tank, carrying 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine, landed in a populated area. The satellite lost power shortly after reaching its initial orbit in December 2006, and it was projected to re-enter the atmosphere in the first days of March.

BlackBerry reveals bumper crop of subscribers

The makers of BlackBerry, the handheld email device, saw off concerns that a spate of recent network outages would hit sales when it revealed higher than expected new subscribers.

Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of the popular device, said that net new subscribers for its fourth quarter, to the end of February, should total 2.14 million — 20 per cent above its own previous forecast and above analysts 1.88 million expectations. The group’s total customer base should now total 14 million by the end of the quarter.

The update — ahead of RIM’s fourth quarter figures in April — assuaged analyst concerns about a potential hit to subscriptions from recent network outages.